[Fists] C2C-03 - W4FCR

[Stan Reas]

It sure was great fun working the C2C-03.  Three of us put W4FCR on the 
air.  Riley, K4ORD worked mainly 20 Meters.  Stan, K4UK worked mainly 40 
Meters and Bill, W4BOT worked mainly 15 Meters.

One of the most interesting happenings was when I went up to 15 Meters at 
about 1430 UTC to see what I could find.  I called "CQ C2C" for about 10 
minutes with no answers.  Then a "booming" signal answered me - it was 
Arve, SM6FFG in Vallda, Sweden.  He gave me a 599 signal report.

We chatted for 25 minutes during which I learned his small town was just 
south of Gothenburg.  I told him I had a Pen-Pal named Sonja Rembo in 
Gothenburg to whom I had written for 45 years.  We signed off at 1505 UTC 
and I continued calling "CQ C2C" but got no answers.

Then about 1520 UTC he called again to say that he had called Sonja on the 
telephone and passed along my greetings.  While he had her on the phone he 
had her listen to my CQ's.  She said her father would have been able to 
understand the Morse Code because he was a radioman many years ago on 
trans-Atlantic ships.  She told Arve that she appreciated his calling her, 
but that she would like to hear directly from us.  So I guess we'll have to 
make a phone call this week.

Since I had no answers to my further CQ's on 15 Meters, I decided to fire 
off an Email to Geo and tell him 15 Meters was open and asked him to put 
GX0IPX on the air and give us a QSO with that Club.  I continued on 15 
Meters until 1550 UTC and still didn't have any answers.  So I went back to 
40 Meters.

Later Geo sent a reply to my Email saying that at 1830 UTC he was hearing 
absolutely nothing on either 15 or 20 Meters.  Bill, W4BOT had taken over 
running W4FCR on 15 Meters and was thrilled sometime later in the day to be 
called by none other than GX0IPX and get FISTS # 1.  So we did get that 
additional Club toward our total.  Bill is new to contesting and was able 
make a total of 12 QSO's on 15 Meters and he had a ball.

Our thanks to all who worked W4FCR.  We had a total of 230 QSO's and worked 
a total of 41 different Club stations.  It was a great turnout for C2C-03.

73, Stan - K4UK